Hi,
I'm no expert on 'governmentality studies' as a whole, i have not read the masses of secondary sources on this topic, but i am interested in the peculiar 'governmentality' of the English, particularly in the Victorian period, a time, I'm sure you'll agree, when the intersection between basic tenets of laissez faire economics and the emergence of a communitarian 'welfare state' is evidently pronounced. But is there a fundamental 'tension' between these two political view-points? During the Victorian period economic discourse, as a whole, revolved around a particular definition of a subject which was essentially self-regulated by rational, calculated, self-interest. [on this see Albert Hirschman's *The Passions and the Interests* 1977, interestingly enough, Hirschman also intimates in this work that the concept of rational self 'interest', as a new behavioural paradigm in the West, initially emerged in political theory before moving on into economic discourse]. Foucault in a late interview states the "contact between the technologies of domination of others and those of the self I call governmentality" [from *Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault, 1988, p 19]. Thus, in light of this statement, there is no 'tension', understood as some basic conflict, between "economic" [read laissez faire] and "biopolitical" [read welfare state] political positions- or forms of 'governmentality'- rather at the points in which they intersect we find the operations of 'governmentality' proper. I realise that the problem driving this request is precisely that in many instances these two forms of governmental practice are seen as being incompatible, but this may be largely the result of the colonial setting on which you focus. I'd argue, that for the English the one led rather 'naturally' or 'organically' to the other, in that the development English 'welfare' state was not, generally, driven by a need to 'dominate', 'control' 'subject', or 'govern' the English populace, not only because the English would of seen this as an infringement of hard earned political rights, but there was no need for that, for the English had already, again generally, mastered the art of governing themselves. I would suggest that because the native Indian population was not seen to have acquired this national characterological trait, that the 'tension' between 'hands-off' and 'hands-on' forms of governmental practice would be most salient.
Just a few thoughts....
bradley nitins